This
tome is a substantial collection of 25 essays presented in 2005 at a
symposium
at the international conference centre of ETH Zurich in Monte
Verità
(Switzerland), 520 pages from some of the foremost Job specialists.
Nine
contributions in English cover 170 pages. The remaining chapters are in
German,
some 50 pages or more, a reflection of the cycles of speeches of the
book of
Job where each friend tries to outdo the others.

Part I
(Historische Kontexte des hebraïschen und des griechichen
Hiobbuchs) has
six articles placing Job in the context of ancient literature.
Katherine
Dell’s, ‘Job: Sceptics, Philosophers and Tragedians’ is a sequel to her
The
Book of Job as Sceptical Literature. She argues that the
differences
between Job and pre-Hellenistic philosophic schools do not support
interdependence. At most, there is ‘a spirit of scepticism and a
presentation
of Job’s situation as tragic insofar as the Jewish religious framework
of this
sceptical author would allow’ (19). ‘The Book of Job as a Trial: a
Perspective
from a Comparison to Some Relevant Ancient Near Eastern Texts’ by Yair
Hoffman
compares Job with Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, the Babylonian Theodicy,
the Eloquent Peasant, and the Negative Confession by
way of the trial
motif (21–31). By employing the trial as a structural device, the book
of Job
challenges traditional wisdom literature. Contrary to the opinion
expressed by
the wise man of the Biblical book of Proverbs, Job is targeted by God
because
(not despite) he is wise, industrious, God-fearing and righteous. Job’s
righteousness and utter misery challenge the conventions of traditional
wisdom
literature (wise = industrious = righteous = God-fearing = rich) and of
psalm
literature (righteous = poor = God-fearing = sufferer). Hoffman adds a
third
level with a challenge of the covenantal paradigm. Markus Witte’s, ‘The
Greek
Book of Job’ is a very useful presentation of the Septuagint of Job. It
is
followed by ‘Hiob und Ipuwer’ by Annette Schellenberg (55–79), who
focuses her
comparison mainly on the Egyptian Admonitions. Then, Edward
Greenstein,
‘Features of Language in the Poetry of Job,’ demonstrates that the
language
particularities of the book result from poetic virtuosity rather than
from the
use of a language different from Biblical Hebrew. Closing the first
section,
Christoph Uehlinger’s monumental ‘Das Hiob-Buch im Kontext der
altorientalischen Literatur- und Religionsgeschichte’ (97–163) offers a
comprehensive attempt to place Job at the end of a broad diachronic
spectrum
beginning with the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta through the Juste
souffrant,
Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, and the Babylonian Theodicy.

Part
II, Das Hiobbuch in biblisch-literaturgeschichtlichem Kontext,
focuses
on inner-biblical relationships. Jürgen
van Oorschot, ‘Die Entstehung des Hiobbuches’ (165–84) reviews
the genesis of Job and discuses current trends in research, in
particular a
renewed interest in the prose frame, and offers a reconstruction of the
development of the frame through several redactions. Detlef Jericke,
‘»Wüste« (midbār)
im Hiobbuch’ (185–96) studies the desert theme in Job 38:16; 24:5 and
1:19 and
considers Job as a figure of the Judean Diaspora. Leo Perdue, ‘Creation
in the
Dialogues between Job and his Opponents’ (197–216) reads Job as a
response to
the devastation of Judah,
revealing the ideological base of its kingship and priesthood as false.
In so
doing, Perdue supplies provocative translations of Job’s two answers to
the
divine speeches:

Since I am despised (by you), how shall I answer
you? I place my hand on my mouth. (Job 40:3)

I reject you and I feel sorry for dust and ashes (= human beings). (Job
42:6)

Neither
arrogant nor blasphemous, the defiant Job continues his protest against
the
unjust God and is sorry for humanity that has to suffer under God’s
callous
oppression (215). The subsequent articles tackle the same problem.
Thomas
Krüger, ‘Did Job Repent?’ (217–29) also challenges the notion that
Job
repented, while Joachim Vette, ‘Hiobs Fluch als thematische Klammer’
(231–40)
presents Job’s self-curse in chapter 3 and its revocation in 42.6 as an
inner
frame binding chapters 3 and 38—42.6 together. Analysing Job’s
references to
the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms, Konrad Schmid, ‘Innerbiblische
Schriftdiskussion im Hiobbuch’ (241–61), sees Job as a kind of
dialectic
theology criticizing “Biblical” notions while upholding their
authority.
Andreas Kunz-Lübcke, ‘Hiob prozessiert mit Gott – und obsiegt –
vorerst,’
interprets Job 31 on the model of Egyptian negative confessions. Job’s
42
confessions correspond to the 42 confessions in Book of the Dead
chapter
125. The article is illustrated with Egyptian scenes. In ‘Eliphaz: One
among
the Prophets or Ironist Spokesman?’, Willem Beuken rehabilitates
Eliphaz’s
first speech (Job 4–5) as a genuine, non-ironic, response to Job’s
complaint in
the previous chapter, taking seriously God’s sovereignty and the
meaningfulness
of an ethical life.

Gabrielle
Oberhänsli-Widmer, ‘Hiobtraditionen im Judentum’ opens Part III,
which is
devoted to the reception of the book of Job. Following this first
article,
which discusses Jewish traditions up to Job’s come-back in modern
secular
Judaism, Jens Herzer covers the New Testament reception in ‘Jakobus,
Paulus und
Hiob: die Intertextualität der Weisheit’. Then, Choon-Leong Seow,
‘Job’s Wife
with Due Respect,’ recovers a minority view which dissented from the
Church
Fathers’ antifeminist readings of Job’s wife. Illustrated with a black
and
white plate and five full page colour reproductions of paintings, this
article
reveals the existence of a lively chain of transmission in addition to
the
known Patristic tradition. Carol Newsom, ‘Dramaturgy and the Book of
Job’
(375–93), follows the ups and downs of the notion that Job was
influenced by
Greek tragedy across the centuries. Johannes Anderegg, ‘Hiob und
Goethes
Faust’ (395–409) and A. Bodenheimer, ‘Heines Hiob,’ close
the survey
with the rendering of Job by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and by Heinrich
Heine.

Under the heading Das
Hiobthema als
Sachproblem in Theologie, Religionswissenschaft, Philosophie und
Psychologie,
Part IV begins with a discussion of the relevance of Job in pastoral
counselling by Manfried Oeming and Wolfgang Drechsel: ‘Das Buch Hiob –
ein
Lehrstück der Seelsorge?’ The next contribution by Daria
Pelozzi-Olgiati,
‘Leben und Tod, Unterwelt und Welt’ (441–54) focuses on Job 3 and how
Job copes
with contingence. Rüdiger Bittner, ‘Hiob und Gerechtigkeit’ brings
out clearly
how the divine display of power evades the problem of divine guilt. The boss is always right:
‘Ich bin der
Herr, und ob ich gerecht bin, ist deshalb egal’ (460). This conclusion
should be brought to bear upon a question raised by Hoffman: ‘Should
God’s
response be considered a divine accusation against Job, or rather a
defendant’s
speech by the accused judge?’ (23) Does it support Hoffman’s
qualification of
God’s answer as ambivalent? Interaction with Schmid’s demonstration
that Job
42:8 applies the Deuteronomistic arsenal to God (251) would produce
some
interesting results. If YHWH rather than Job’s friends (as it is too
often
claimed and translated) almost commits a grievous folly against Job’s
friends
(after the one committed again Job), the book of Job is far more daring
than
its interpreters in stating plainly and coherently Job’s innocence and
God’s
guilt.

Christian Frevel’s
‘Schöpfungsglaube und
Menchenwürde im Hiobbuch’ (467–97) is a detailed ethical
application. It
addresses the oft raised question of the books purpose, which may
emancipate
readers from the much later claim that Job is about theodicy. Isn’t Job
more
concerned with the justification of lament and denunciation of God
despite his
height and supremacy? (471). This topic may make it one of the most
siginificant contributions for future discussions. Frevel’s footnotes
discussing Job’s “repentance” (471 n. 14; 496 n. 69) could have
benefited from
interaction with Krüger’s and with Uehlinger’s articles on
theodicy. The volume contains a final contribution
by Brigitte Boothe, ‘Die Narrative Organisation der Hiob-Erzählung
des Alten
Testaments und die verdeckte Loyalitätsprobe’ (499–513).

The volume closes with a
cursory index of
cited passages which does not account for the footnotes, although in
some
articles the footnotes cover half the page. Given the encyclopaedic
nature of
several articles and the sheer amount of material in the volume,
readers will
lament the cruel absence of their best friend, the subject index that
retrieves
the pearls of scholarship from Leviathan’s jaws.

Ideally, the authors would
have integrated
relevant points from the other contributions into the final drafts of
their articles.
As in many conference proceedings, they did not do so and the problem
appears
from the first contribution on. Dell writes that the rightness and
wrongness of
the different perspectives expressed in Job are left open and that
Job’s
repentance spoils his ‘having spoken “what is right” in that because he
has
already capitulated in the light of God’s presence’ (7). At this point
(footnote 25), Dell thanks Ed Greenstein for challenging the
supposition that
Jonah ‘repents’ and Dell refers to alternative translations in Driver
and
Gray’s commentary (published 1921!) although 200 pages later Perdue and
Krüger
present (both in English!) a thorough refutation of this point. I
regret
Krüger’s mitigation of his crucial demonstration of the absence of
repentance (‘Job
42:1–6 can still be read as a statement of repentance but not in the
sense of
what his friends expected’ p. 226), but his conclusion has major
consequences
on Dell’s argument. Instead of the fuzzy “academic” non-committal claim
that
the text is open-ended, the recognition that Job’s staunch refusal to
admit
guilt would make the book of Job less Pyrrhonian and more Promethean.
If he
does not repent, Job, like Prometheus, does not submit in any
way and
this becomes a key factor of tragedy which Job does not ‘fail
to
fulfill’ (13). Since the dark side of God revealed by his display of
power
provides no answer to Job’s profound questioning, Job comes close to
identifying God as unpredictable like the dark forces of fate found in
tragedy
(15). Hence, the claim that the repentance spoils the tragedy (16,
quote from
G. Steiner, ‘Tragedy, Remorse and Justice’, The Listener 102
[1979],
508–11), does not hold if Job does not repent, or if, as Jung argued in
Answer
to Job, Job’s repentance is tongue in cheek. The link with tragedy
is
strengthened. Yet, the ultimate argument against labelling Job as a
tragedy is,
I suggest, that the book does offer a practical solution to its
readers. Job’s
intercession (Job 42:7–9) is presented as effectively protecting his
friends from
foolish divine wrath. By extension, readers are invited to place
themselves
under Job’s intercession (see Ezekiel 14) to avoid the collateral
damages of
God’s daily encounter of Leviathan. Hence Hoffman’s claim (30) that the
sombre
conclusion of Job offers no solution since God is unable to provide
sufficient
answers to Job’s accusations should be reconsidered. That Job does nor
repent
and needs not do so since he is granted a clear vindication of his
innocence
must have major pastoral consequences which one seeks in vain in the
final
part.

Inasmuch as this review
bewails the fact that
the proceedings reflect too closely the “dialogue” between Job and his
friends
and display too little engagement of the ideas of the other
participants (did
they spend a week together in silence?), these criticisms are miniscule
in
comparison with the value of a volume which makes the reader look
forward to
the integration of its very important insights into forthcoming works
on Job.
This is a landmark volume that opens a new era in Joban scholarship.
Ploughing
through these 500 pages is worth the effort. The editors and
Theologischer
Verlag Zürich are to be congratulated for producing such a volume
a mere two
years after the symposium.